This and That

Beware of Hartford, place of pestilence. Flu has moved through my campus like a gasoline fire, with over 100 students out of class. At the same time, a weird and malevolent norovirus is moving through the Hartford public school system, cleaning out classrooms while janitors run screaming. If this wasn’t enough, my son’s daycare was almost empty yesterday because he, along with half of his classmates, came down with conjunctivitis (the rest were out with stomach flu). I call myself lucky. Feverish, brain stuffed with cotton, I’ve made it through with a maniacal head-cold.

No heavy thoughts today, then, just some places to visit:

Interdisciplinarity is a term that gets approving nods from most academics. We should all work together! But it usually ends here. On the table of academic bounty, interdisciplinarity is the curly parsley: lovely to look at, but no one ever eats it.

The Arctic Blue Books Online represents a massive trove of British reports on Arctic expeditions in the 19th century. Cataloged with care and prodigious effort by Andrew Taylor, the 6000+ pages of the Blue Books are now available online along with Taylor’s helpful indexes and finding aids. Where else can one find index references to “Cannibalism” and “Calves Foot Jelly” in the same place?

Finally, Peter Etnoyer of Deep Sea News tells us that the narrative and scientific reports of Challenger Expedition (1872-76), a stunningly ambitious attempt to sound, trawl, fish, and net a new science of the sea, are currently online (along with lovely image scans) here.

This week we remember British explorer Charles Darwin who turns 200 on Thursday. For those living close by, I’ll be giving a lecture tonight at U Conn-Avery Point on Darwin in the Age of Exploration (Branford House). Good pictures and free coffee to those who attend.

Eric, I was stunned that so many people were willing to turn out on a Tuesday night… and then they stayed after the coffee break. You Avery Pointers have stamina. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat more. I just put name to face to blog this morning. Funny how you see people out in the void of the internet and never assume that they’re living a few miles away.